UConn's Board of Trustees on March 11
unanimously approved a memorandum of agreement with the American
Association of University Professors that freezes faculty salaries
for one year, while offering the union's members protection
from budget-related layoffs.

The agreement, if approved by the state, will save
the University an estimated $6.6 million in 2003-04 and is
considered a key to helping UConn continue to provide a high
quality education in the face of cuts to the state-funded portion
of the University's operating budget.

AAUP members approved the contract amendment
474-115 in a vote that took place during the first week of
March.

"The agreement not only has great intrinsic
value, but it also has brought us tremendous good will with the
governor and the legislature," President Philip E. Austin told
the trustees. "Five or six members of the Appropriations
Committee [where Austin testified on the budget on Tuesday] praised
the AAUP and the University for coming to agreement."

The few questions posed by trustees concerned the
University's authority to make adjustments to programs that may
be deemed unnecessary or no longer valuable. Austin assured them
that the University retained fully its programmatic
prerogatives.

Including a salary freeze imposed on non-union
managers and faculty at the School of Law, UConn will save nearly
$9 million in the 2003-04 budget.

Quentin Kessel, president of the UConn chapter of
the AAUP, praised his members after the vote, noting that faculty
"have shown, once again, the value of having a shared
commitment to the preservation of excellence at the University.
Without such a freeze and the protection against layoffs, the
University would have a hard time protecting student interests,
valued colleagues who often take a year or more to recruit, and
public support that was demonstrated so well with the progress
reflected in UConn 2000."

Austin, while acknowledging that the state is
facing a difficult budget year - and promising that UConn will be a
partner in the resolution of the budget crisis - told
Appropriations Committee members that cuts in the proposed 2003-05
appropriations cannot be easily absorbed.

"It is important for you to understand that it
will be extraordinarily difficult for the University to accommodate
this limited state support, especially considering the budget cuts
imposed over the past year. Were it not for the pending agreement
with the AAUP regarding bargaining unit member wage freezes, we
would be facing extremely dire circumstances," Austin told the
panel. "Even with that agreement É we face the unavoidable
prospect of non-faculty staff reductions and program adjustments or
eliminations ."

UConn's appropriation in the governor's
proposed budget for Storrs and the regional campuses in FY '04
is $13.6 million, including fringe benefits, less than current
services; and $22.4 million (including fringe benefits) less than
what is needed to maintain the state's share of current
services in FY '05.

The proposed appropriation for the Health Center in
FY '04 is $3.3 million, including fringe benefits, less than
current services; and in FY '05, $5.9 million, including fringe
benefits, less than current services.